I understand why he did it. That guy was heckling him and Richards got so mad he just hit him where it hurt. If the heckler guy is going to be disrespectful he should at least be prepared to take it himself.

Originally posted by BrownEyedBoy I understand why he did it. That guy was heckling him and Richards got so mad he just hit him where it hurt. If the heckler guy is going to be disrespectful he should at least be prepared to take it himself.

No. Bringing race into it is unacceptable. Call the guy an asshole, whatever, but bringing race into it is not right.

Originally posted by BrownEyedBoy No. It's in YOUR Constitution. He can say - or call someone, in this case - whatever he feels like.

If I don't want to get punched I simply don't throw a punch.

I didn't say he wasn't allowed to say it, I said it was unacceptable. If you think it's appropriate to respond to something like that with a racist tirade, then that says something about you, doesn't it?

Originally posted by BrownEyedBoy I never said "appropriate". But if you're going to dish it out you should be able to take it as well. It's really that simple. That guy just got one upped for being a smartass.

Originally posted by BrownEyedBoy I never said "appropriate". But if you're going to dish it out you should be able to take it as well. It's really that simple. That guy just got one upped for being a smartass.

I really don't think you understand what happened. The heckler was a smartass, sure, but Richards' response was some very nasty racial shit. He didn't respond in a way that kept it comic to heckler. He started talking about lynchings and calling him a n****r, at least five times.

Originally posted by BrownEyedBoy I never said "appropriate". But if you're going to dish it out you should be able to take it as well. It's really that simple. That guy just got one upped for being a smartass.

Do you not see the difference between "you're an idiot" and "50 years ago we would kill you for this because you're black"?

Originally posted by DaveC He's either on something or he's blindingly drunk.

Probably both.

Still, though...

I've been thinking about this...because he did seem a bit unnerved. But I don't think there is enough booze and drugs in the world that could get me to say such racist things...unless I actually believed racist things.

I just watched this, and I think there might be another explanation. Is it possible that he was trying to be cool in an extremely post-modern, ultra-ironic way, and that he just wasn't clever enought to pull it off? We know that really brilliant comics can get away with using the "N" word, and pushing all of the boundaries of bad taste to get a laugh (just think of all of the most recent and not so recent examples - Borat and Pryor to name only a couple). Is it just that Richards, trying to jump on a comedy bandwagon, completely lacked the subtlety, finess and intellect to pull it off? And so came off being merely (or rather extremely) offensive.

I've been to a few stand up clubs were comedians have been quite racist/sexist/homophobic/diss the disabled/whatever, and it generally falls under the rule of: If you give shit to someone, it's okay as long as you are giving shit to everyone equally. There is a very fine line though.